


The Tree of Life

by MyLittleCornerOfSherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Choices, Gen, Tree of Life, diverging timeline theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 10:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyLittleCornerOfSherlock/pseuds/MyLittleCornerOfSherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We live a linear life.  What does our tree of life look like when we look back at the branches and leaves of what might have been?  A narrative of John's tree of life and its merging with Sherlock's.  Go ahead and apply your Johnlock goggles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tree of Life

**Author's Note:**

> A very short look at my tree of life theory told in John's life.

How many choices do you make in a lifetime?  Choices that lead you down different paths.  Big choices, little choices, all day, every day.  And if you were to make one choice, just one, differently...how that might make all the difference in the world.

Imagine if you will, these choices, like the parts of a tree.  Each new big life choice would grow a new limb from your trunk.  And from each choice new branches, twigs, and leaves sprout based on the other choices that would result from that choice.  Your own tree of life.  Had you made that choice you might be at the end of one branch, the last falling leaf.  But you chose this path so up your tree kept growing.  Up, up towards the sky ever reaching for the sun.

You look back behind you, down the tree.  Sometimes you can see your branches and twigs, looking back at the what-ifs and might-have-beens of where your choices might have led.  But, mostly, they’re obscured by the leaves of all the little choices you made all along.

You can’t see the family that might have been.  The one with a petite blonde woman named Mary.  Her gentle smiles and your children that are a perfect blend of the two of you.  The life you would have lived, with cane still in hand.  You would have met her if you had decided to take the bus home from visiting Ella that day.  That day, instead, you chose to take a walk in the park and ran into an old friend.

You can’t see the dead limb that marks what would have been the end of your life had you chosen to stand the moment the bullets started to fly.  Instead you chose to stay true to your training, stayed kneeling trying to treat a fallen comrade.  If you had stood to return fire, you would have had a bullet in the heart instead of your shoulder.  

The leaves of your choices from your life with Sherlock obscure those branches from view.  You didn’t know  it when you took a walk in the park, what should have been a simple little twig, your tree of life instead sprouted a new sturdy branch.  Tiny limbs sprouted when you sat down for coffee with Mike, then followed him to St. Barts.  Twigs grew as you handed Sherlock your phone.  Branches, twigs, and leaves continued to sprout  that next day; a full foliage in bloom after your dinner, the chase, and the shooting of the cabbie.

You can’t see any of the other could-have-been choices of your tree.  Your tall, solid oak has seamlessly merged with the slender, pale beech of Sherlock’s life.

Oh how you cried, your oak shedding leaves after he fell in sympathy.  Sherlock’s own leaves changing to those ever rustling, dry, paper thin things.  But now they are green again as he stands in front of you, alive and waiting.  There is a new branch on each of your trees waiting to sprout.  But it is up to you on which direction it will take.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been wanting to write something like this for awhile now. Think of the alternate yous, the alternate choices you may have made had life been a little different, where might you have ended up. I hope you enjoyed my look at John's. 
> 
> Yes, the choice of trees for John and Sherlock are intentional.


End file.
